Kildonan
Premium Platinum
I love the fact that my granddaughters can grow up playing footy.
My daughter played AFL in rural Queensland until she was 12. She was taller than the boys and played ruck. She loved it. She learned how to put her body in position to protect the smaller adept players who would gather the ball and deliver it forward. She also pushed up to CHF and led the creation of a wall to keep the ball in their forward line. She was verbal and understood what she needed to do and was a real leader.
She wasn't allowed to play at age 13.
Girls didn't have a separate change room. There weren't enough girls playing to form one team let alone a league.
She dropped out and played roller hockey.
My granddaughters have more choice. They can play in mixed teams when they are young, or find an all girl comp. but their parents will have to travel further. There is a whole infrastructure set up now where girls can follow a pathway which can lead to a career in footy.
I believe this is wonderful.
The pathway for my daughter was a dead end at 12 years of age.
If there is no ultimate competition (AFLW) to aspire to, the pathway for women would end somewhere short of that and that wouldn't represent equality of opportunity. For those girls / women who wish to chase this dream, I am all for it.
There are those that seem to think that the main goal in sports (in general) is the spectator entertainment, but the vast majority of the achievement in sports is the participation and development of skills, tactics and fitness. I think the entertainment is a byproduct of the excellence of their skills. The players are the major beneficiaries in almost every level of the sport, not the spectators. The vast majority of the spectators roll out to see the highest level of the sport, but that highest level would not be what it is without the pathway from junior all the way to professional level/s. Team sports are contributory to many other aspects of life.
Why would we continue to deny half the population the opportunity to fulfill their sporting goals, allowing them to become what they aspire to?
When my mother finished year 10 matriculation, she gained the highest academic score in the school, but the Dux was awarded to the male who finished third in the school - and this was accepted because only men went on to university.
Those days have changed. We have almost twice as many geniuses leading our society now, because women have an almost equal path to men.
I'm not saying that women will be able to compete on the same playing field as men, although I would love to see some supernaturally skilled female player tearing the men a new one, one day. The women deserve the right to play AFL if they want to. It only makes sense for them to set up the whole structure and provide a pathway using the lessons learned from the pathway to excellence for men.
My daughter played AFL in rural Queensland until she was 12. She was taller than the boys and played ruck. She loved it. She learned how to put her body in position to protect the smaller adept players who would gather the ball and deliver it forward. She also pushed up to CHF and led the creation of a wall to keep the ball in their forward line. She was verbal and understood what she needed to do and was a real leader.
She wasn't allowed to play at age 13.
Girls didn't have a separate change room. There weren't enough girls playing to form one team let alone a league.
She dropped out and played roller hockey.
My granddaughters have more choice. They can play in mixed teams when they are young, or find an all girl comp. but their parents will have to travel further. There is a whole infrastructure set up now where girls can follow a pathway which can lead to a career in footy.
I believe this is wonderful.
The pathway for my daughter was a dead end at 12 years of age.
If there is no ultimate competition (AFLW) to aspire to, the pathway for women would end somewhere short of that and that wouldn't represent equality of opportunity. For those girls / women who wish to chase this dream, I am all for it.
There are those that seem to think that the main goal in sports (in general) is the spectator entertainment, but the vast majority of the achievement in sports is the participation and development of skills, tactics and fitness. I think the entertainment is a byproduct of the excellence of their skills. The players are the major beneficiaries in almost every level of the sport, not the spectators. The vast majority of the spectators roll out to see the highest level of the sport, but that highest level would not be what it is without the pathway from junior all the way to professional level/s. Team sports are contributory to many other aspects of life.
Why would we continue to deny half the population the opportunity to fulfill their sporting goals, allowing them to become what they aspire to?
When my mother finished year 10 matriculation, she gained the highest academic score in the school, but the Dux was awarded to the male who finished third in the school - and this was accepted because only men went on to university.
Those days have changed. We have almost twice as many geniuses leading our society now, because women have an almost equal path to men.
I'm not saying that women will be able to compete on the same playing field as men, although I would love to see some supernaturally skilled female player tearing the men a new one, one day. The women deserve the right to play AFL if they want to. It only makes sense for them to set up the whole structure and provide a pathway using the lessons learned from the pathway to excellence for men.
